


i'd like to be my old self again (but i'm still trying to find it)

by tigerlilycorinne



Series: AUgust 2020 Short Fic [26]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe – Sirius Black and Remus Lupin are still alive, Angst with a Happy Ending, But a lot of Angsting first, Getting Together, Hurt/Comfort, Love Confessions, M/M, Monster Hunters, Mutual Pining, Post-Second War with Voldemort, Post-War, Sirius Black Needs a Hug, So does Remus Lupin, wolfstar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-26
Updated: 2020-08-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:47:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26125978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tigerlilycorinne/pseuds/tigerlilycorinne
Summary: Sirius was stuck wishing he had something– somethingdifferent– all those years ago, at seventeen.Why didn’t you say anything?Remus asked him.Because you never did,said memory-Sirius,Besides, what would I say?Now here they were, packing up the tent, Sirius with nothing to say and Remus hefting the Sword of Gryffindor with a tired smile. “We might catch them this time, so I hope you can handle it.”Sirius made himself grin back. “I’ve been ready since the First War.”Featuring Sirius who thinks he’s not who he used to be and Remus who loves him as the man he is now.
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Series: AUgust 2020 Short Fic [26]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1856617
Comments: 17
Kudos: 153
Collections: AUgust 2020





	i'd like to be my old self again (but i'm still trying to find it)

**Author's Note:**

> This one is angstier than my usual, I think, but no less self-indulgent. Enjoy!  
> Title from Taylor Swift's "All Too Well".

_Remus pressed against Sirius’s side, his eyes lit like twin fires. Sunlight caught in his hair, played at the curve of his jaw through the windows in Gryffindor Tower, his robes messy and slightly unbuttoned in the heat that always came near the end of the school year._

_He was whispering things, too soft to be a mutter, too urgent to be a murmur, something on the edge of both. They all meant the same thing–_ I want you, I want you, I want you.

I know _, Sirius said,_ I’ve known for a while. _He had. He’d seen it in Remus’s gaze– he wasn’t an idiot, and he knew what it looked like when someone liked him. Half the school did, after all._

You knew? _Remus blinked, stepping back._ Why didn’t you say anything?

What does it matter? _Sirius reached out, running his hands through Remus’s hair._

_He didn’t know how it felt. It was only a dream, after all, and he didn’t know what it was like to run his hands through seventeen-year old Remus’s hair, to pull this beautiful boy into his arms and kiss him, and kiss him, and feel his heartbeat or the scent of him close, so his mind didn’t know what to do. It was only a dream, and he didn’t know how it felt. So it felt like nothing._

_But Sirius kissed him anyway._

Sirius woke up. His heart, cold and heavy in his chest after the dream– which was really a memory, almost– settled in, but it fluttered warmly in his chest when he realized the warm arms around him were Remus’s. And then it dropped again. Because they were Remus’s.

The almost memory stayed vivid in his mind as Remus opened his eyes, older than he’d been in the dream, thirty-eight now, and while he usually looked thirty, sleeplessness made him look his age and then some, here in the morning light that caught less on his jaw now, and more on the grey streaks in his hair. 

Sirius loved him all the same. Loved him _more_ , even, because this Remus wasn’t a pretty boy with good grades and a sweet disposition anymore, but a man who’d lived so much and come out better, at least, than Sirius had after the same number of years.

“Morning,” Remus murmured, rough with sleep, removing his arms from around Sirius. 

Sirius’s heart ached for them to return, but he was bony and uncomfortable to hold, and he knew they had better pack up the tent and get moving, so he sat up and wrapped his arms around himself, tight, as he slipped out of his sleeping bag and into the cold air of just-broken dawn. 

He cast a warming charm, and heard Remus’s quiet hum of appreciation. He didn’t look, but he could hear the rustle of clothes and knew Remus was changing, changing into soft, worn and patched clothes that smelled like him while Sirius was stuck in his own drab clothes, smelling the sharp, pine smell of the woods and wishing he had something to say. 

Wishing he had said something– something _different_ – all those years ago, at seventeen, not that it would’ve changed anything now. But if he’d known this silent man out of Azkaban but not yet alive again would be his future self, he’d have taken those days of bliss while he could’ve.

 _Why didn’t you say anything?_ Remus asked him, and this time, Sirius’s mind played for him what he’d actually said, instead of the dream, the almost-memory, the wish. 

_Because you never did,_ said memory-Sirius, and memory Sirius shrugged and grinned like he didn’t care about anything, not even Remus Lupin, and said, _besides, what would I say? I suppose I could recruit you to practice kissing._

 _It’s not as if I’ll kiss anyone else,_ Remus had murmured, his eyes pained. _People aren’t tripping over themselves to date a werewolf._

Sirius had tipped his head, pretending to hear something. _Come on, James is calling us_. 

Sirius today cared about everything, and didn’t say anything, and didn’t have a James to call him. Sirius today was a shadow of a person, and even if Sirius was a constellation, Remus Lupin was the one made of stars, and if only Sirius had had him for one moment when he was still young and bright too…

But he’d been too afraid, too sure he’d mess it up and their friendship along with it, and if he was careless with everything else in his life, Remus would be the thing he cradled like a treasure, and now…

Now here they were, packing up the tent, Sirius with nothing to say and Remus casting quick tracking spells, his movements sure. Even after all those years back out of Azkaban, Sirius couldn’t help thinking about how one of them had only gotten brighter and the other had become an echo of who he used to be.

Sirius shrunk down the tent. “Which way?”

Remus looked at him, his eyes still made out of fire, green like Lily’s had been, but somehow miles more exquisite, and Sirius lost his breath. Again, again, again, Remus never stopped destroying Sirius in quiet ways.

Remus tipped his head, dropping his wand back into his pocket, hefting the Sword of Gryffindor that Harry Potter had given them after the Battle of Hogwarts. He hadn’t even asked why they needed it.

“Northwest. Couple miles.” Remus offered him a tired smile. “We might catch them this time, so I hope you can handle it.”

Sirius made himself grin back, unsure if it looked like a grin or a grimace. “I’ve been ready since the First War.”

Off the two of them went.

Sirius swung up into the tree and pressed himself against the trunk, staying as still as he possibly could, the rough bark catching against his loose, raggedy robes and the hair he hadn’t cut since the last haircut he got before the Battle of Hogwarts. It hung just past his shoulders now, black and slightly wavy, tangled because he hadn’t brushed it in forever. Now it got stuck amid the pine needles and the tiny little twigs that jutted out of the branches he grasped as he steadied himself, trying to stay as still as possible. 

He could see Remus in the tree closest to the one he was doing the same and winced in sympathy as Remus’s hand slipped and he grasped at the tree branch desperately, sending Sirius’s heart into a wild, terrified frenzy for one split second– just barely managing to hold on to the unforgivingly hard plant. That had to have hurt.

They stayed still and quiet in the trees, shifting as carefully as they could to steadier positions and throwing up protective and disillusionment charms, layers of them, as black-cloaked people came into view. 

The last of the Death Eaters, Sirius figured, though he couldn’t be sure since he hadn’t gone back to Hogwarts since the battle six months ago, since he saw Nagini slip silently from the battle and out into the Forbidden Forest. He’d relieved those moments a million times– he hadn’t been able to catch her, but if he _had…_

Well, if he had, he wouldn’t be here now, hunting down the snake-Horcrux-person with Remus at his side. Moony. With the man he wished was doing anything, anything at all as long as it was nowhere near Sirius.

If he had, he wouldn’t be staring down at the Last Death Eaters, who huddled around Nagini like it was the last treasure on Earth (She? It? He? _It_ was a Horcrux, of _Voldemort_ , who was a man, but the _snake_ was a lady…). To them it must’ve been– Harry Potter had already slain Voldemort and destroyed all the other Horcruxes, even the one inside of himself, which made Sirius’ chest ache with pain and pride at the same time. If only James could see his boy now.

If he had, he would be holding still, watching the huge, long snake flick its tongue out and turn its head, right to…

Right to where he was. It wasn’t hard to see that unless they acted _immediately_ , any advantage from the element of surprise they’d hoped to have would be gone.

Sirius caught Remus’s eye across the long drop between them where Nagini slithered, hissing, getting ever closer to the base of Sirius’s tree, and he almost felt whole again– the rush of the danger singing in his veins– he almost felt alive. 

Remus was looking at him, waiting for a signal. As if Remus would follow Sirius’s lead, as if he didn’t know Sirius would follow him to the end of the earth, to the depths of hell, straight to Voldemort’s door. It was almost laughable that Remus should think Sirius would tell him to do anything at all.

But Sirius grinned, still feeling almost-alive again, the kind of alive he hadn’t felt since sometime in Azkaban, though if you asked him when he’d stopped feeling all there, he wouldn’t be able to tell you. 

Even Harry Potter hadn’t been able to make him feel quite alive, and Harry Potter was James and Lily and all his own, all at once, taking the world by storm. But looking at Remus now, over the heads of _Death Eaters_ for Merlin’s sake, he almost felt like a teenager, pulling a prank. Even if it was the kind of prank that could end the world if they failed.

Remus grinned back, wry and tired.

And ready.

They dropped down.

Sirius knew immediately it had been the right call to not inform Harry and his little band of martyrs to track down Nagini– this whirling, duelling battle was beyond them, with bright, flashing spells on all sides. 

Remus set the shields, as he always did, wand in one hand, sword in the other, his mouth grim and his chin held high. 

Sirius fired off the offensive– one down. 

“ _Stupefy_!” 

Two. He could hear the frantic muttering of two on the edge, closest to Nagini, who came at them with her mouth open, huge fangs exposed. 

Remus was still firing off shield spells, over and over. “ _Protego, Protego, Protego.”_

Sirius felt an inexplicable rush– even after all these years, they were still in sync. That meant… well, that meant something between them was still left, and the mere idea of it fueled Sirius’s spells. 

Stinging hexes flew off his tongue, and _Petrificus Totalus_ and _Stupefy_ again as bodies fell over each other, and Remus’s shield spells slowed as the number of attacks lessened. 

“To the right,” Remus called to him, and Sirius turned to catch a Death Eater fleeing. He quickly put an end to that.

“Thanks.”

“Of course.” 

Only Remus, Sirius thought with a sort of satisfaction. Only Remus would return _of course_ in the middle of their fight to take out the very last of Voldemort’s Horcruxes.

Sirius took down another, his screams echoing through the quiet forest. The last one backed away, hissing with the sting of a hex, and Sirius blasted his retreating form _hard_ , right into a tree. The man didn’t get up.

Nagini reared her head high, her hissing loud enough to hurt Sirius’s ears, grating and dry, going for Remus. Sirius stepped back, letting her in, his heart a hurricane in his chest. 

The idea of Remus with her bite put him in mind of Remus’s werewolf scars, the ones he used to dream about tracing before he stopped trying to imagine anything that had to do with touching Remus at all– it just made everything worse. Wishing only hurt.

“Remus,” he heard himself whisper anyway, nothing but them and the snake there. It felt as if he might die, even though he knew Remus was ready.

She came closer, her huge, scaly body coiling under her as she bore down on Remus’ wand arm, and–

Remus turned, quick as a whip, bringing down the gleaming Sword of Gryffindor, flashing in the light.

Blood, metal. A limp sort of thump, the steel determination in Remus’s eyes, the solemn way he didn’t even smile as he did it.

That was it.

Sirius stared down at the two parts of the snake– a body without a head, a head without a body. A Horcrux, destroyed, the darkest wizard in the history of magic finally stamped out of every living being.

And the man who’d done it, splattered in blood, his hand loose around the Sword of Gryffindor, the tip of it resting irreverently on the ground. Remus Lupin, his eyes shining softly with achievement, his hair messy and his gaze not on the bloody victory before him, but on Sirius.

Sirius didn’t understand the idea of loving someone so much you could die, though James used to proclaim it all the time. He didn’t think it was possible, especially not now. He’d felt half-dead forever, now, and Remus’s eyes made him feel more alive than he had in decades.

“Good job,” Remus said. 

There was a scar down the line of Remus’ neck, cutting sharply under his robes, and Sirius remembered a time when they’d jump into the Great Lake together, and he’d think about that scar, gleaming white and wet, the only time Remus would ever be shirtless, except in the showers where Sirius didn’t get to see him. Remus rubbed it now, two fingers down the line of it, half awkward, half thoughtful, a nervous tick he’d had for years. 

“You’re the one who killed it.” Sirius looked back down at the snake they’d been hunting for what felt like a lifetime. Everything felt longer when it hurt, and Sirius never wanted to leave Remus’s side, but _it hurt_ , and if only someone else had come… 

If someone else had come, Sirius wouldn’t feel terrified and heartbroken already, knowing that Voldemort was gone and Remus no longer needed to team with him, to sleep with his arms wrapped around Sirius in tents and catch his eyes across tree branches. 

Had he thought before he wished anyone but Remus would be with him for this? He wished it still, if only to escape this what-do-we-do-now moment as he waited for Remus to shake his hand and say _one more night, and we’ll part ways_ or something like it. But then if it hadn’t been Remus, Sirius wouldn’t’ve gotten these few, sweetly torturous, blissfully painful months…

Maybe he was glad it had been Remus after all. He’d felt almost alive by Remus’s side.

Remus was still watching him. _It was an honor,_ Sirius waited for him to say. Sirius himself didn’t say anything– his throat wasn’t working, and it took too much energy not to run to Remus, only a few steps away, and pull him crushingly close for there to be any energy left in him to speak.

“Do you have a place?” is what Remus said. “Or Harry’s place?”

Sirius didn’t like Grimmauld as much as Harry did, and Harry didn’t need the two of them showing up bloody and exhausted at his door, so he held out his hand. 

If Remus noticed it trembling he didn’t say anything, but Sirius knew Remus could feel the sweaty-slick tightness of Sirius’s grasp. _Don’t go_ , Sirius wanted to say, and Remus wasn’t going, not yet, because Sirius was Apparating them to his apartment.

“I never thought of you as the country sort of person,” Remus said when they arrived. 

It was a quaint cottage, Sirius thought, or it had been. It had come with a light, yellow-y wallpaper, and Sirius had left it to fade. He’d left everything to fade. The shelves held James, Lily, Harry. Remus and Remus and Remus and Remus. 

The rest of the house was so dull and undecorated, only containing what Sirius really needed, that Sirius couldn’t bring himself to be embarrassed by the wealth of pictures of Remus he had on his mantlepiece. If one was supposed to fill their house with love, a single picture of Remus would’ve done it. The pictures of him were the best part of the house.

 _I’m not really any sort of person_. Sirius didn’t say it. Instead, he looked at the house, dust-coated from the months of no upkeep, and flicked his wand half-heartedly. A little bit of it disappeared, and Remus let out a small, amused little breath that made Sirius fall apart and flicked his own wand, setting the room to rights.

“What do we do now?” Remus mused, poking his head into the hallway door and then going to the other end of the living room and locating the kitchen. 

Sirius just sat down on the faded grey sofa and watched him, too weak from the image of Remus in his house to do anything but take deep, slow breaths and clench his hands hard enough to bite into his skin. He turned his wand in a slow circle and listened to Remus’s gentle puttering about in the kitchen. _Stay,_ he thought _, stay, please stay._ He didn’t have any other words, so he didn’t say anything. 

Remus answered himself. “I haven’t got a place, so I’ll stay here until I find one, if you’ll let me?”

Remus came back in, two hot cups of tea in front of him. He flicked his wand to send them to the table and Sirius sat up a little, taking the one in front of him into his hands gratefully. 

He took a sip. The warmth burned his tongue, painful enough to overpower the taste of it. He took another sip. _Stay as long as you need_ , he meant to say, but what came out was, “You made me tea.”

Remus’s eyebrows went up a little bit as he took a seat by Sirius, the sofa dipping under his weight. Smiles were scarce these days, but it almost looked as if Remus might give him one. “Yes.”

Sirius took another gulp, larger this time, so it burned the back of his throat. “Thank you.”

Remus’s eyebrows pulled together. “Sirius–”

“You needn’t find another place,” Sirius blurted, because he couldn’t bear his name in Remus’s mouth, a million times better than it needed to be, like somehow Remus thought Sirius was worth a star, too. And the care in Remus’s voice, he couldn’t bear that either. “You’re my friend. You could live with me.”

Remus’s eyes dulled a bit, and Sirius’s heart cried out at the loss of his gaze as Remus looked down at his hands.

“Friend?” 

It was mid-afternoon now, and it looked like the blood on Remus’s robes had gone mostly brown, though Remus’s wasn’t facing the window, so in the shadow it was hard to tell. Sirius focused hard on trying to figure it out, rather than thinking about the strange note in Remus’s tone, like maybe Remus was missing the boy he’d fallen in love with, back when Sirius was still alive.

“It’s been years since I got out of Azkaban,” Sirius said, which was a bitter lie on his tongue. He was still in Azkaban, some days. “Haven’t we still been friends this whole time?”

Remus stood up abruptly. “I’ve still got blood on me, haven’t I?” Sirius had been staring at it _too_ much, he realized. He looked away. “Where’s the shower?”

Sirius pointed him. Remus went.

Sirius listened to the water and finished his tea before it had even cooled down. He looked at the mantle and the pictures of Remus. Young Remus, sixteen maybe, his eyes bright and his robes clean, a stack of books in one arm and the other around a grinning Sirius. Remus Lupin the young and stunningly perfect had been in love with that Sirius Black, with the grin that promised trouble and a light in his eyes that promised infuriatingly relentless banter.

Remus Lupin the older and stunningly perfect was taking a shower to wash off the drying blood of a monster with a madman’s soul, in Sirius’s house-not-a-home. This Sirius Black didn’t know what to say and didn’t know how to laugh, let alone trade fond insults at the top of his lungs.

Remus Lupin was taking a shower.

 _Remus Lupin was taking_ –

Sirius stopped thinking about it. 

The other photos were Remus, at Lily and James’ wedding, a fond smile on his lips, a flush to his cheeks, stunning in his best robes and laughing, a wine glass in his hand. He jostled Sirius’s shoulder, and picture-Sirius threw his head back, laughing at something. The picture restarted, Remus smiling fondly.

“How’d you get that one?”

How long had Sirius been staring at the pictures? When had Remus come back out? He smelled like soap and had fresh robes on from the bags they carried with them. Sirius still had the shrunken tent in his pocket. He unshrunk it a little, so it was the size of a present box, and tossed it back on the sofa.

Remus was pointing to the last one, black and white, Remus looking both shy and grave, older still than the one from James’ and Lily’s wedding.

“Newspaper clipping,” Sirius said. He reached for a full sentence. “I heard you were teaching there, from guards talking. I stole one of their newspapers.”

“And you cut me out of it?”

Those had been the worst days, objectively, because they were near the end of his twelve years and he’d been in the worst shape, mentally. And emotionally. And just having that picture… having that picture had been everything. It probably saved Sirius’s life.

“You were at Hogwarts,” Sirius said, but in his own voice, he could hear everything he wasn’t saying, everything he really meant. “I never got to see you teach.”

“Sirius,” Remus said. Something in his voice…

Sirius dared to glance at him. It was a terrible idea. Remus was watching him intently, something still caring in his eyes, and Sirius couldn’t have looked away to save his life, or breathed, even, with Remus’s eyes on him like that.

“Am I just a friend to you?”

The threat of death might not have been able to make Sirius do it, but those words did. Sirius took a sharp breath and looked away, not to the mantlepiece, anywhere but towards Remus Lupin, standing there in his house and asking him…

Asking him. Sirius knew he was obvious– he hadn’t been trying to conceal it, really, just to pretend it wasn’t there, to act like it wasn’t, so that on paper it looked as if he didn’t feel a thing. Remus knew him better than that.

Remus stepped closer. He wasn’t even that close, and still Sirius felt as if his heart was trying to run right out of his chest, to Remus’ chest, to lay itself in Remus’s hands. Laughable that he felt like that when Remus had already held his heart for most of Sirius’s life.

Sirius stared at the teacups on the table, one drained and empty, one still full, and sweet, the way Remus liked his tea. “You noticed,” he managed. How long had Remus known? Remus was always the last to know anyone was in love, and Sirius had thought perhaps Remus hadn’t caught on yet.

“For a while,” Remus said, still reading Sirius like a book. He laughed, humorless and bittersweet, before saying, “I didn’t say anything because you never did.”

There was no way for Remus to have known about Sirius’s dream just that morning– it felt like months ago now– but Sirius had no doubt that Remus knew what he was saying. 

Sirius didn’t say anything. He didn’t have anything to say. He wanted to ask if Remus would still be staying, knowing Sirius felt that way about him, but he knew the answer would be no, and he didn’t want to hear it just yet.

Remus leaned against the mantlepiece, tipping his head down as if to look up into Sirius’s downcast eyes, perhaps. Sirius didn’t know; he didn’t look back.

“We could practice kissing?”

Sirius made a sound before he knew he was making it and looked up, clenching his hands tight in his pockets, biting into the crescents already there. “Don’t _tease_ me,” he begged, only it came out harsher and angrier than he meant it.

Remus looked at him, his eyes wide and startled, and guilt gnawed away at Sirius’s stomach, cold and wrong. 

“I didn’t–” Remus darted forward, catching Sirius’s hand. Remus’s hand was warm, firm, calloused. Gentle. “I’m sorry,” he said, his words a rush, “I didn’t mean to tease. I didn’t actually mean– all I meant is I’d like to kiss you.”

Sirius’s blood ran hot through his veins, each of his heartbeats indistinguishable from the next. He backed towards the table, running away from the call in his chest. Again. 

“You didn’t finish your tea,” he heard himself say. Remus hadn’t even dropped his hand, just letting himself be pulled by Sirius. 

It took Sirius a moment to realize he was gripping Remus’s hand tightly. He felt Remus holding his back, albeit more carefully, his thumb running over the back of Sirius’s hand. Sirius dropped Remus’s hand and backed away a few more steps, until it felt like he could think again. 

Remus drew back his hand, something flashing over his face, fleeting as the flash of lightning, or the whisper of a single gust of wind. “I’m not going to kiss you if you don’t want me to,” he said, like somehow he thought Sirius was afraid he might. 

Sirius wasn’t afraid he might– Remus was never that kind of boy, that kind of man, but Sirius almost found himself wishing Remus would be, just for a moment, so he wouldn’t have to say– 

“Of course I want you to kiss me.” He said it with his eyes on the table and he didn’t look up, but he didn’t miss it when Remus stepped closer. 

And closer. 

And put his hands on Sirius’s shoulders…

And kissed Sirius, carefully, on the mouth. Lightly, the way a gentle rain swept over a drought-ridden country and made the whole place beautiful for a little while, softly the way only the smallest tugs could unwind the tightest of knots, tenderly the way a lover could touch someone’s hand and unravel them. 

His lips were warm and soft, his hands steady, his touch making Sirius feel as if he’d never felt half-alive before– what had that been? A dream? He didn’t know. 

All he knew was the feel of Remus’s mouth on his own, the taste of sweet tea on his lips, the way Remus kissed like a caress. He felt as if black and grey no longer existed, and white was too bland for the rush inside of him, and too simple for the wild in his chest. 

Remus smelled like the plain soap in Sirius’s shower. Sirius himself was still in dirty robes, unshowered, Remus in clean ones. Sirius didn’t even want to touch Remus with his bloody hands, Remus’s clean ones in Sirius’s tangled, forest-dirty hair, Remus and his gently smiling mouth against Sirius’s grim one–

Sirius placed both his hands flat on Remus’s chest and pushed. Pushed him away. Pushed him right onto the sofa and stumbled back, his heart in shreds in Remus’s hands, his heart so incredibly torn. 

Remus touched his mouth and looked at him, his expression more stunned than anything, but with no small amount of hurt. His hands were shaking. He looked like he belonged anywhere but a drab grey couch in the middle of nowhere in a house uncared for. “I…” But Remus didn’t seem to have any words.

Sirius’s whole body still tingled in spite of himself. “I’m not… I’m not _him_ , Moony,” he said, pointing to the picture of his teenage self on the mantelpiece, “I’m not that guy anymore.”

“That’s good?” Remus said faintly, his voice warbly and pained. “I’d be a pedophile if you were.”

“That’s not– funny–” Sirius’s voice cracked and he hated himself. “This is who I am now, I’m– I’m angry and I can never say anything, and I’m always fucking depressed about everything, or I’m doing something dangerous because it makes me feel alive– I’m not whoever you fell in love with at Hogwarts.”

For once, perfect Remus looked at a loss, out of his depth. “That’s how growing up is– you _change_ – I’m not the boy you fell in love with either.”

Sirius made a sound. “You _knew?_ ” 

All these years, he’d thought he’d pretended pretty well he hadn’t been head over heels, falling for one Remus Lupin, his _I suppose I could recruit you to practice kissing_ indifferent and unreadable and Remus wasn’t supposed to _know_ what a coward he’d been.

“I knew.” Remus’s shoulders sagged, and he looked at his hands. 

Sirius thought he’d never seen anyone look so desolately beautiful, so anguished he might cry just from looking at Remus. 

“I knew before I told you how I felt, I knew after…” he looked Sirius in the eye. “It’s been years since you got out of Azkaban,” he said, echoing Sirius’s words. “Haven’t I had long enough to fall in love with the man you are now?” 

Remus’s words rang in Sirius’s ears like the echoes of a thunderclap, a warning of a storm to come, something Sirius could only protect them from if he took cover. If he… 

If he let this go so he could hold onto them as a pair of friends, if he could bear to turn Remus down, again, so that he could have Remus longer, so that he wouldn’t shatter them. It was so much easier to shatter things close to you, and Sirius had always been so good at shattering things.

Sirius didn’t say anything.

Remus closed his eyes, like he couldn’t stand to look at Sirius one moment longer, and leaned back until his head rested against the back of the drab grey couch. Only then did he open his eyes to stare dully at the ceiling. “It hurts to be around you, you know,” he whispered, his voice wrecked and miserable. “I know you’re in love, just like you were in school, but I– I thought perhaps it would be different. Maybe you would take a chance on me.”

It seemed like a dream, a nightmare, the way Remus’s hand strayed, as if of its own volition, to Remus’s neck, where the werewolf scar ran under his robes. Remus, at seventeen. _People aren’t tripping over themselves to date a werewolf._

It _hurt_ Remus to be around Sirius. _Maybe you would take a chance on me._

“Moony,” Sirius whispered, half hoping Remus wouldn’t hear him. He hadn’t spoken their names from their Hogwarts years in forever, except for when the nickname had slipped out of his mouth a minute ago. 

Remus closed his eyes, his chest rising, falling. “It’s okay,” he murmured back, but it sounded as if he might be trying to convince himself. “I can find a place to stay.”

Sirius imagined the pain he’d felt, wishing and aching and breaking every day, and imagined Remus feeling half of that, a quarter. His heart cracked. “ _No_ ,” he said, “No, Remus, I–” 

He didn’t have any words.

He never bloody did. 

He made a desperate sound that he hoped meant something and strode forward and seized the front of Remus’s clean robes and pulled him up. Remus had barely managed to lift his head straight when Sirius kissed him back down, laying them both on the couch, his heart pounding fit to shatter his ribcage. He thought distantly that he wouldn’t mind that one bit.

He found that one word again and murmured it against Remus’s lips, a chant. “Stay. _Stay._ ”

This was alive. This, here, with Remus on his boring grey couch in his dusty house, Remus’s hands skating up his back, running up his sides where you could still feel the shape of his ribs, touching him reverently, _this_ was alive. 

This was _wanting_ to be alive, not for the thrill of it, but for the little pieces of it. The sweet taste of Remus’s lips, the unappealing dinner out of a Muggle can they would have to have, the half bare mantelpiece he might want to fill someday, with more pictures of Remus. And maybe a few of himself, too. Smiling. 

He wanted to live for the boring moments, and the bad ones, and every minute of the present. And for the future that maybe Remus would be in, if Sirius was lucky enough to get this right.

“It wasn’t about your lycanthropy, it never was,” Sirius murmured, holding himself over Remus with shaky arms. “Not for a moment.”

Remus didn’t ask how Sirius knew he’d been thinking it, or deny that he had. He just gave a self-deprecating smile, as if capturing that whole little conversation in a fleeting expression and asked, “Then why…?”

It felt foolish to say out loud. “I didn’t want to…” he pushed up, trying to sit, but Remus’s hands flew up to Sirius’s back again, pulling him back down to Remus’s chest. 

Sirius shifted carefully, but Remus seemed unbothered by the way Sirius’s bones dug into him. Sirius stared at the scar on Remus’s neck and traced it with a finger. Remus closed his eyes, letting out a long, shaky breath.

“I didn’t want to lose you,” Sirius said finally.

Remus didn’t open his eyes, just smiled wryly. “You didn’t want to have me, because you were afraid you’d lose me? That makes no bloody sense, Pads.”

Sirius’s heart swelled. _Pads_. Five minutes ago he would’ve broken from that but… well. _Haven’t I had long enough to fall in love with the man you are now?_ He thought he might remember those words forever, and he savored the warmth in his chest, tucking the memory away for the rainiest of days, should he ever feel unalive again.

“You know how good I am at fucking things up.” 

Remus tipped his head, and Sirius caught Remus’s eyes, needing to make sure Remus knew.

Remus dropped his head back down and laughed, genuine and real as the slowly sinking sun. “Of _course_ you’re going to fuck up. Everyone fucks up. _I’m_ going to fuck up. But–” he gazed at Sirius meaningfully. “I’m not going to leave you for it. I’m never going to stop loving you.”

Sirius’s heart threatened to burst out of his chest, and he kissed Remus again and again and again.

Remus smiled against his mouth. “And I’m never going to leave you. I’ve waited to bloody long for you to do something like that.”

“Stay with me,” Sirius said urgently. “Don’t find another place. Live with me.”

Remus eyed him. “Because we’re friends? Because ‘we have been friends this whole time’?”

Sirius swallowed hard. “Because I love you. And if I let you walk away I–” he closed his eyes and swallowed around the lump in his throat. He had come so close to seeing Remus out, it hurt his heart to think about it. He dropped the sentence and looked down at his blood-splattered clothes. “Besides, who else will I hunt monsters with?”

Remus raised his eyebrows. “I’m a werewolf,” he said hesitantly, as if Sirius hadn’t known it his whole life.

“You’re not a monster.” Sirius traced the scar again, pushed himself up so he could kiss it lightly. “You couldn’t be a monster if you tried.”

“Werewolves are legally registered as magical creatures.” Remus didn’t look at Sirius. Just pushed a hand through Sirius’s hair and ran his nails lightly over Sirius’s scalp back and forth, like petting a dog. 

“Then I’m in love with a magical creature. I don’t _care_. You’re _Remus Lupin_.” He pressed everything he felt into that name.

Remus smiled. “I suppose I’m staying, then.”

Sirius lay his head down on Remus's chest. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. Remus knew who he was and how he felt. And Remus was staying not in spite of that, but because of it. 

On the mantelpiece, sixteen-year-old Sirius turned to sixteen-year-old Remus and gave him a kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!! I had a different pairing planned for Day 26, but [FangirlOfLetters](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FangirlOfLetters/pseuds/FangirlOfLetters)'s fic [we're that band](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24597742) gave me too many feels and I had to write a Wolfstar fic instead. Please check it out! It's a whole lot fluffier than this one.
> 
> And! Hit me up to me on Tumblr [@tigerlilycorinne-drarry-me](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/tigerlilycorinne-drarry-me) or my main [@tigerlilycorinne](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/tigerlilycorinne) if you'd like to drop me any more Wolfstar recs or just say hi.


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